almagest

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 02:46 PM) It doesn't bother me in April. Most of these guys are at 100 pitches tops, and Danks is a guy who hasn't been at 180 IP in a season yet. He isn't going to be like MB who can go 120 if he needs to. Right, which is why I think it's going to be important to closely monitor his pitch count, and when he starts leaving the ball up more, for every start.

QUOTE(lostfan @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 02:41 PM) I was thinking earlier today, is Cabrera really that much of an upgrade over Uribe at SS? Obviously offensively, yes he is a MAJOR upgrade, it's like going from a s***ty Neon to a Mercedes. But defensively they seem about equal to me. Yes Cabrera is a GG caliber defender but if Uribe had any kind of offensive numbers at all, he'd at least have been a candidate the last few years. Clearly and obviously Cabrera should be starting over Uribe at SS, but if they're both in the lineup I don't see why Uribe would be automatically at 2B. I guess because Uribe sucks and he isn't a fixture in the lineup the way Cabrera is and should be. Where oh where are you, Danny Richar? Ideally, I'd like to see Uribe in a pinch-hitter, 300-400 AB role at SS-3B-2B, like he had in 2004. Either that, or playing for some other team.

QUOTE(lostfan @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 02:28 PM) I will still give Uribe credit for being a fantastic defender, and arguably among the best at his position. Which is why making him the starting 2B is baffling, because his greatest defensive asset (arm) is worthless there.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 02:20 PM) Yeah, you definately wanted to make sure the kid didn't lose that game. You had to build his confidence and leave him on as high of a note as possible. Yep. It's a little worrisome to me that he's tiring after 80 pitches, but he's still pretty young and it's only his second MLB season. I think it's going to be really important to try to keep him around 90 pitches or so a game this year, so he can build up stamina gradually, and to keep his confidence high. It's also really obvious that he's going to have to have very good control to keep his pitch count low, otherwise he'll be gone after 5 almost every game.

QUOTE(lostfan @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 02:15 PM) Juan Uribe was half of our offense today, but he is still a really awful hitter with no plate discipline or contact ability whatsoever. Get excited about his occasional power streaks if you want but more often than not you can just add 1 out and skip him entirely to save time. Agreed. He just happened to run into a pitch at an opportune time. He'll do that about 20 more times this year, while still only posting a low-mid 600s OPS.

QUOTE(lostfan @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 01:49 PM) Danks only threw 87 pitches when he left the game, had he hypothetically gotten the one out he was pulled for, he probably could've cruised thru another inning. Stone said Danks looked tired, and was starting to leave the ball up. It was a good idea to get him outta there.

I'm going to keep ripping on Crede and Uribe, because it seems to be working. That being said, GOD Crede is AWFUL.

Speaking of selective stat-quoting... QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 10:25 AM) Uribe bats ninth. For a guy who is so bad, he drove in 10 less runs than the almighty run machine, Nick Swisher last year, while batting ninth on a team with perhaps the worst offense in the league. Yeah, I guess it doesn't matter that Oakland ALSO had a terrible offense, and Swisher lead off a lot, which wouldn't give him too many RBI situations. He also walked 100 times and slugged .455.

QUOTE(ChiSox35 @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 09:05 AM) Which is why I brought up the '06 Cards. Eckstein at short? An oft-injured Rolen at third? An outfield that I would be hard pressed to name? Don't worry, you can still win with Uribe at second and Crede coming back from an injury. I'll agree with you that the key lies in starting pitching/bullpen, but defensively those two guys give us the best shot, and what team wouldnt take a 20 HR/70 RBI 9 hitter regardless of what his OBPS/SNIUF/DUFEDF/POOP/whatever other ridiculous asanine stat you can come up with says? The notion that the Cardinals won with/because of a bunch of crappy players is... well, wrong. The Cardinals had Chris Carpenter, a year removed from a Cy Young award, and Jeff Suppan in the rotation. They also had Jeff Weaver pitching way above his head for the last 1/3 of the season. And Albert Pujols/Scott Rolen/Juan Encarnacion/Jim Edmonds/Chris Duncan and a pretty good bullpen doesn't sound too bad to me. This is a team that won 100 games the year before, and probably would've won 90+ in 2006 if not for injuries. They got healthy and hot at the right time. I also wonder how you can selectively quote Uribe's only decent stats to say he's good, then say that you can't use stats to prove he's not very good. He doesn't hit for average, he's never on base, he doesn't walk or take pitches well, and he strikes out a ton. His main defensive strengths are worth less at second base, as well. It's obvious, he's just not very good.

Super Mario Galaxy is sweet. I know I'm a little behind on this, but wow.

We recently switched to DHL because the sales rep was hot. Seriously, that's the reason. FedEx was working fine for us. Not a bad switch, though. The pickup and delivery guys are nice, the rates aren't bad, and they handle stuff pretty well, as long as it's packed decently. Plus the rep pops in every so often to see how we're doing. Which is nice. I know it's just an excuse to see me, though.

QUOTE(Y2HH @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 09:00 AM) Excellent point. Add to that the fact that the majority of *nix, especially the childlike Linux community wouldn't want to hack their beloved operating system of awesomeness. I attribute this to their general hatred, (in some ways extreme hatred to an alarming degree), toward Mac and Windows based machines/users. Of course you have your Mac idiots and PC idiots, too...but I think the majority of the casual users can really care less, they just want their PC or Mac to work without having to play with drivers or configuration files for hours on end to get it "mostly working". Not quite... Ubuntu 7.10 is actually quite a bit easier to get hardware working with than Windows. Most everything besides really obscure or brand-new hardware is plug-and-play. Fedora is a pretty easy-to-use distro, and SUSE as well. I hope you also realize that OSX is built on Unix, which is architecturally very similar to Linux, and with a small amount of work you can compile source code meant for Linux on OSX. I also wonder if you're basing your opinion of Linux users on things you've read on messageboards, which is a bad idea. People on messageboards are usually the bottom of the barrel. Hey, wait a minute...

Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, but I sure would've liked to see Quentin or Anderson in the lineup today.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:33 PM) Monday was a positive loss, as the team showed some energy. Even I can appreciate that. Yep. Which makes this game all the more disappointing.

Cleveland's pitching keeps trying to give us runs, but apparently we don't want them.

QUOTE(G&T @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) It's brutal. Twins fans cheered Hunter. They're just smart enough to realize that he got 18 mil per year and would be insane to not take it and leave MN.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) People from Cleveland just wish they could get the hell out of Cleveland, and are jealous Thome did. That's really the only reasoning I have. I don't know how you could boo such a great person and player. I was reading earlier today that Cleveland has one of the worst housing and job markets in the country.

Cleveland fans chanting "You're a traitor" to Thome. Classy bunch.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 08:52 PM) People can hate Uribe all they want and he did fan 3 times in the opener, but he's been seeing as many pitches per at bat as anyone else. I think he will have a good year. Yeah, a single on a pitch at shoulder level in the 8th inning of a 6-1 ball game after looking terrible in his first two at-bats changes everything.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 07:47 PM) Sure. But, Uribe is no different than that Ozzie Guillen guy who played for us. He swung at everything too. It's early in the season and Uribe can sure enough provide some punch at times. I don't see how you can make that statement. Uribe has been one of the worst starting players offensively in MLB for the past couple years. Guillen was pretty bad, too, but he was able to put up an OPS close to what Uribe's has been, while never hitting more than 4 home runs in a year.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 07:42 PM) Settle down on Uribe. he will get his butt kicked in the dugout I hope. Ramirez the so called Cuban missle keeps swinging away and Thome grounded into 2 DP's. Let's trade them all. Yeah, see, the difference is, Uribe does this ALL the time. Thome is a HOF-caliber player, and Ramirez is a rookie who is pretty obviously overmatched at this point.

Uribe is just bad. I know we know this already, but sweet jesus. BAD.

Hooray for Crede. Single up the middle, AJ scores after the wild pitch brought him to second. 2-1 Cleveland.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 12:35 PM) Havy is the manz!!1!!!1!1!!! Anderson better start or I'm going to donkeypunch someone. Now that's dedication... you'd even go boink some dude, then punch him in the back of the head, just to express your anger over Ozzie's poor decision-making. I applaud you, good sir.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 10:39 AM) This isn't the NFL. If interference is called, it has nothing to do with whether Thome would have been safe or not. Its not like the ball had to be catchable deal in football. If you smash him with your leg, there is still a little doubt whether it was intentional or not, even though umpires and everyone know its the runner's job to take the guy out. Grabbing him or flailing your arms give no doubt. If he didn't call it, Wedge would have been out arguing, just like if it was the other way around, Ozzie would have been out there arguing it should have been interference, Hawk too. Maybe that's the way the umpires interpret the rule, but that just doesn't make sense to me. The word "interfere" has a pretty non-ambiguous meaning, and I don't see how Cabrera was interfering with any possible play. I still feel it was a poor judgment call, especially in the context of this game.